Big thanks to Kishimoto and Oda for creating such amazing works of fiction for us fans to enjoy. I'm a big fan of both of these series and wanted to write a story involving two of my favourite manga. I'm not very experienced at writing fanfiction, I hope this story won't be a complete waste of your time lol. English is not my first language so if you find any mistakes, I hope you'll understand.
On a relatively calm day for the sea of Grand Line, the island of Jaya was experiencing rare peace. Normally, on any given day, you would find dozens of pirates ships anchored at the docks and hundreds of pirates drinking away their time at the island while their log pose reset. And when multiple pirates came together, it was only a matter of time when blood flowed. Thankfully, even lawless scumbags knew better than to harm innocent civilians of the island. No one knew since when but Jaya had been a safe haven for pirates and criminals for a long time. Main reason was that the navy and the world government didn't bother to come for the small fry this far in paradise part of grand line, they already had their hands full dealing with criminals from the New World.
Today was rare, because there were only a handful of pirates on the island. So there were no drunken fights, no back alley murders, and relatively small property damage. It wasn't much but for the natives of the island, all the peace in the world was gathered on Jaya. It seemed like a perfect, peaceful day and the citizens didn't expect anything out of the ordinary to happen. But a sudden appearance of a doorway in space-time certainly counted as 'out of the ordinary'.
Grand Line- A Few Miles North Of Jaya
A few feet above the turbulent sea, two men stepped out of a circular black space-time portal, they landed on the water and stood on the sea surface as if it were solid ground. One was wearing a silver-grey vest over black shirt and black pants, a black cape hid a missing left arm while his hair covered the Rinnegan of his left eye; he had a serious expression on his face, like he was about to march to battle, or just came from one. The second one, on the other hand, had a cheerful smile on his face, completely opposite to that of his partner. He had orange pants and a long crimson coat with black flames near the edge over a black shirt. A red arm band on his left bicep showed the spiral of his clan. He had deep blue eyes and spiky wild blonde hair, a metal forehead protector showed the symbol of his village and his right arm was completely covered in bandages.
"Remember Naruto, you have to search thoroughly. Don't get distracted by anything," the raven haired man said.
"Yeah, yeah I know how to complete a mission, Sasuke. Just because I'm not a broody bastard like you, doesn't mean I can't handle a solo mission, I completed plenty of them in last two years." Naruto said.
"Whatever. It will take a few months at least, maybe more, don't come home empty handed." Sasuke completely ignored his jab, he knew acknowledging it would only make matters worse.
"Don't treat me like a child, you bastard," Naruto almost pouted but recover quickly, "I know how important this mission is. Shiho said that cylinder gave a map and it might be related to the Otsutsuki,"
"I found that cryptex in kaguya's palace in that fire dimension we fought in during the war, it gave coordinates of this location, not a map. This world is inhabited so be careful. Find out what connection this place has with Otsutsuki Kaguya,"
"Yeah, yeah. See you later, Sasuke." Naruto said his goodbye.
Sasuke nodded and turned back to leave, "Just don't burn down this planet while you're here, loser." He waved his hand over shoulder and walked through the space-time portal, his best friend never saw his smile as he left.
"Well, sensei did say stealth was optional," Naruto said in his mind and got a deep rumbling laugh as a response.
"Now then, let's see what connection this world has with Rabbit granny," Naruto extended his senses in all directions. He sensed half a dozen abnormally large creatures in the sea, and about four hundred people to the south. His destination set, Naruto sprinted along the water. It didn't take him long to reach land. It looked like a fairly small island split in almost identical two halves by a bay. Some ships were docked at the port near a town. As he got closer, Naruto got a better look of the layout of the island, there were a bunch of buildings overlooking the sea, it looked like a resort.
Naruto stepped on land and chose a road randomly, the street was fairly busy and a lot of the men looked drunk. There were a few hotels, some shops and a lot of bars. If he had learnt anything from watching Pervy sage, it was that bars and brothels were the best source of information. Naruto crossed the street and entered a decent looking building.
The bar was very crowded with only a couple of empty tables. He chose one on the far end, on his way there Naruto intentionally bumped into a man and swiped his wallet, he had lots money in Gamachan but there was little chance they'd accept Ryō here. The poor guy didn't even suspect anything. Naruto chose a seat near a rather loud group, so he could eavesdrop on their conversation.
"...true story. None of the cannon balls we fired reached their ship, they came right back at us twice as fast and destroyed our ship instead. Cap'n sank right before my eyes," one of the guys was saying.
It wasn't even a minute since he sat down and already Naruto heard some very interesting things, none were related to his mission however, but they piqued his curiosity. A bartender came over to him with a glass of water, "What can I get ya?" he asked.
"Some good sake and whatever's fresh in the kitchen," Naruto replied almost immediately. He wanted to hear more about what the man was talking about.
"Alright..." the bartender said and left him alone. Naruto once again focused his attention on the conversation going on behind his table.
"You're a lucky one to survive, Johnny. That Captain Kid is a vicious one, rumor has it that he leaves a bloody trail wherever he goes. Even his first mate is named 'Killer',"
"yeah, the navy has put over a hundred million berry on his head, and he's been a rookie pirate for less than a month!"
Naruto sat there listening to people talk for hours, occasionally joining a random table, buying them drinks and talking about anything and everything. He spent all the money he stole and then he stole some more again, drunk pirates were easy targets. The men didn't realise it but their casual conversation gave him a lot of information- like, there were a lot of pirates in the world, and the Navy was responsible for keeping peace; there were these things called devil fruits, so far he didn't get much information about whatever that was, just that it gave the user some amazing abilities, that was enough to ring alarm bell in his head. They sounded like chakra fruits, he wondered if there was a tree here like the god tree Kaguya had, if there was then it was almost certain that it came from the Otsutsuki. The thought of more Otsutsuki worried him a little. Rest of the conversations weren't very useful with just a nugget of information here and there. Naruto sat there for a few hours and then he went to a different bar, until late in the night, he did nothing but eat, drink and eavesdrop on conversations of random people. When he was properly drunk, Naruto decided to go to sleep for the night.
As he laid on a soft feather bed in a hotel room he broke in, Naruto went into his psyche plane. Kurama was sleeping with his head resting on his front paws.
"How much did you hear?" Naruto asked his partner/best friend.
"Everything," Kurama answered without even opening his eyes. Naruto walked towards the giant fox, sat down and laid his back against Kurama's finger.
"I really hope I don't find out anything about that Rabbit Granny here," Kurama opened one eye to look at Naruto, but didn't say anything. Naruto knew him good enough to know what his silence meant, so he continued. "Otsutsuki know of this place, we can tell that much from that cylinder, that already makes it a target for them. Those fruits give me a bad feeling. I don't want people of any world to end up as plant food. I mean people here are still people and not white zetsu so rabbit granny wasn't here but we don't know what plans she had with this world or if she had already visited this place for some reason, or was going to come here in the future," Naruto told his friend everything he had on his mind, anything that worried him.
Kurama let out a chuckle, which sounded like a mild earthquake, "Relax Naruto, You're worrying too much again. You've been like this ever since the war ended, you don't have to bear the weight of all the world on your shoulders. Whatever it is we'll take care of it! Take Kakashi's advice, pick up a hobby or something."
Naruto laughed a little, "I do have a hobby Kurama,"
"I meant something besides trying out new ramen flavors," Kurama had a slightly annoyed expression on his face.
"Aw man, you ruled out the best one! Okay fine, I'll think of something," After a few moments of silence, Naruto spoke again, "How are the others? It's been a while since I talked to them,"
"They are all fine. B wanted to know whether you're going to his concert or not, I shooed him away."
"Heheh Looks I'm gonna miss this one too," Naruto sat there talking to Kurama for a good hour until he fell asleep.
For the next week, Naruto spent all his time on gathering as much information as he could. He would create about twenty clones and transform them in random people. These clones would drink at bars, visit brothels and walk the streets for hours at a time. At night, Naruto would think about all he had learnt during the day. He had asked everyone he met if they knew of a goddess that came from the stars or a divine tree, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so much; so far no one had any information on either of them. By now, he had gathered enough information to know how the world worked- pirates were scumbags, the world government was in charge of most of the world and navy was their strength. He learnt of basic geography and read about some important people and big time pirates and criminals.
Birds dropped newspapers and bounty posters for wanted people, from that he created his own a bingo book. He read about the many small battles between Whitebeard pirates and Beast pirates in the New World over some territory, apparently those two were called emperors of the sea. And there were four in total who ruled their own part of sea in the New World, which was on the other side of Grand Line. They were supposed to be so strong that even the Navy was hesitant to go in their territory to arrest them.
It wasn't until the seventh day that he heard something that could possibly be a lead for his actual mission. An island in the sky, even the sound of it felt a little Otsutsuki-ish. In a bar, two men were talking about how a warlord of the sea, Doflamingo made a pirate named Bellamy kill his own first mate. Apparently it was punishment for bringing shame to the warlord's flag. According to the men, Bellamy got knocked out in one punch by Straw Hat Luffy, after Bellamy made fun of the Straw Hats for believing a sky island actually existed. When asked around the bar where the incident occured, the bartender told him that at first Straw Hat Luffy let Bellamy beat him without so much as raising a finger and later in the night Straw Hat defeated Bellamy in a single punch. Naruto decided not to think too much about a bar fight between two pirates, even though it intrigued him a little.
For the whole week he was on the island, Naruto never thought that there were people living in the sky right above his head. Who would? Unless you knew there was an island in sky, you wouldn't even think of such a possibility. 'Maybe it's like that hidden sky village,' Naruto thought. He briefly entered sage mode and immediately felt the chakra signatures of hundreds of people about six miles in the sky.
Naruto activated his sage of six paths mode and flew towards the clouds. As he went higher, the people, buildings and then the island itself grew smaller and smaller until Jaya was nothing but a green speck on a vast blue sea. It wasn't long until he passed through a thick cloud filled with some weird looking fish. Naruto was surprised to see creature that you would expect to see in the oceans, living in the clouds so high. 'Maybe it's common in this world,' he thought to himself.
As he came out of the cloud, the first thing Naruto saw was the huge forest. Sky island was nothing like what he imagined, he had seen a city in the sky before and thought that maybe it was something like that. Naruto had a vague picture in his mind of how it would look like, but he didn't think it would be an actual landmass on the clouds, complete with forest and animals. This world was turning out to be more and more interesting.
'First thing's first, let's see what kind of people live here,' Naruto thought and entered the forest, he headed straight towards where most people were gathered together. He climbed a tree and started to jump from branch to branch. On his way he saw a lot of animals- a large pack of wolves, some snow white foxes, large insects and huge, colourful and weird looking birds, there were even some roller coaster like clouds that went throughout the forest. It reminded him of forest of death back home, except the trees here were a lot bigger.
After a few miles of tree hopping, Naruto arrived on the edge of town. There were a lot of tents and huts, and most of the people were busy building new homes. 'Either they just moved here from somewhere or their original homes got destroyed somehow,' he thought. The first thing he noticed about them was what appeared to be a pair of white wings on their backs. 'Are they real?', was his first thought.
Men and women were busy with construction, and some children were playing on a giant blue snake, using its back as a slide. Snake didn't seem to mind, and was actually smiling.
At the centre of the soon to be village, there was a giant beanstalk that went high up in the sky and there was a huge golden bell near it. The bell was hung above a platform, supported by huge pillars. The pillars, the platform the pillars rose out of and even the stairs that led onto the platform appeared to be completely made out of gold. 'Man that's a lot of gold! Kurama, are you seeing this?' Naruto got no answer from the fox. A quick look inside his mind showed him the giant fox curled up with his eyes closed. 'The mighty Ninetails is taking a nap,' Naruto chuckled and exited his mind scape.
Naruto felt three people approach him from behind but he made no effort to move or hide. He simply waited for them as he watched the people work.
"Hey, you!" one of the men said. Naruto turned around to face them. All three men were half naked, wearing nothing but grass skirts and some animal pelts. All of them had a lot of tattoos on their arms, chests and even faces. The one in front looked like he was their leader, he was a tall man with tanned skin and long braided hair that reached his lower back and a tattoo around his left eye and shoulder. He had a huge gun in his hand. The other two were similarly dressed and both had mohawks. "Who are you? What business do you have in our home?"
Naruto raised both his hands to show them that he wasn't there to fight, "Please, lower your gun, friend. I mean you no harm. I'm just a traveller that's happened to find this land. It's not everyday you see an island in clouds you know, I thought I might take a look around," Naruto said with his usual smile.
"You're from the blue sea?" the man asked.
"yeah, I heard so much about this place that I couldn't help but come here myself. And from what i've seen, this place lives up to it's reputation as the legendary Sky island," Naruto tried to flatter them as much as he could.
The man in the back looked visibly relaxed as he said that, "So the sound of the bell reached the blue sea?" he asked with some happiness clear on his face.
"Of course. It's a dream of many people to one day visit this place," Naruto lowered his hands and took a step forward. When the men didn't stop him or told him against it, Naruto approached them.
He put his hand forward for a handshake but the serious looking man didn't take it, so he lowered it. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, I travel around the world writing books about legendary places of the world. For my next book, I am writing about this sky island." Naruto grinned at the men. "If you don't mind, I'd love to take a look around."
The three men looked at him like he asked them for their kidneys. After a few seconds of what appeared to be some really hard thinking, they lowered their weapons. "You're lucky, blue-sea man. If you were here a few days ago we would have attacked you first and asked questions later. Count your lucky stars we've already decided to announce our presence to the world."
"Really? Thank goodness! I'd have hated to be here a few days back then, you lot look strong." Naruto laughed as he scratched the back of his head. If they thought him weak and harmless, they might be more cooperative, he thought.
"But don't think for a moment that you're free to do what you please while you're here. You'll be watched every second of your stay here. Kamakiri, don't let him out of your sight," the man in the front put away his gun and walked past Naruto, not even acknowledging him.
"You got it Wyper," the one named Kamakiri said.
"Well then, let's go sightseeing," Naruto said out loud and went into the town, Kamakiri in tow.
He started walking in the town area, people stopped their work for a moment or two to look at the stranger, besides that no one paid him much attention. Just past the construction site, near the giant beanstalk, there were ruins of what appeared to be an ancient civilization. Solid clouds had covered a lot of the area and the ruins seemed to go deep. If there was any clue about Rabbit granny in this world, they would definitely be in some ancient place like this.
Spacious streets of the city were still relatively intact after god knows how many years it had been since they were built. There were carved stone status of people long dead and symbol of sun was abundant. There was some strange writing on the walls and some stone tablets, Naruto had no idea what it said.
"Hey, Kamakiri," Naruto called out, the guy hadn't let him get more than ten feet away from him so far.
"What is it, Uzumaki?"
"Can you tell me, what's written here?"
"I can't read it," Kamakiri answered with a shrug.
"This is your homeland right? Isn't it your language?" Naruto raised his eyebrow at the man.
"Yes, this is our homeland but this city is thousands of years old, knowledge of that language is lost to time. There's only one woman in the world who can read the script," Kamakiri answered truthfully.
"Who is it? Can I meet her?" he hid his eagerness from his voice.
"Nico Robin. And you can meet her, if you can find her, she's from the surface. She came here a few days ago with her crew,"
"That's too bad, I was hoping she was here," Naruto let out a sigh. He got up and moved on to the next stone writings. "What's the story here? Why did your people built a city this high up in the sky?" Kamakiri didn't seem to mind talking about it and he didn't pretend like it was a some sort of secret either, so Naruto asked directly. "Was it for security reasons?"
Kamakiri snorted when he heard his question, "My ancestors didn't build a city in the sky. 400 years ago this land was part of Jaya, one day a powerful knock up stream erupted beneath the island and threw this part in the sky. Since then, this land along with the people are stuck here."
"So your people came from the surface world?" Naruto asked as he moved from writing to writing and checked carved images, so far he didn't find anything even remotely related to Kaguya. He asked Kamakiri anything that came to mind and got answers to most of the questions, from the history of the island to culture and traditions and everything else. He wandered the ruins all day and most of the night, Naruto even took a closer look at the golden bell but didn't find anything of use, there was just that same writing but his time on a large blue stone. As interesting as this sky island was, it was a dead end as far as his mission was concerned.
After sleeping a couple of hours on a tree, Naruto woke to the sound of strange animals of the jungle. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked around him. The east horizon was tinged pink and the faint noise of denizens of the sky reached his ears. He unrolled a sealing scroll and took out his special edition breakfast ramen, after emptying a cup he jumped down from the tree and headed into the town once again.
Like him, people were just getting up, some were hurrying on some errands, many were getting ready for their work to build the houses. There wasn't much of the ruins left to search, it would take a few hours at most to check the remaining spots thoroughly. He walked past the cone shaped huts and some statues carved out of wood, and to the ruins of the ancient city.
He started to take ink prints of anything he thought was interesting- symbol of the sun surrounded by eight small dots, carvings of strange animals and some more writings on the wall. It was almost sunset when he finished inspecting every stone in the ruins.
When his work was done, he found a nice place under a tree and sat down. He took all the ink prints he made so far and put them in a single sealing scroll. He took out a paper and pen to write a letter, when that was done, he bit his thumb and went through the practiced hand signs- boar, dog, bird, monkey, ram- he slammed his hand on the ground. A summoning matrix appeared, followed by a small puff of white smoke, when it cleared a small crimson toad with blue markings around his eyes stood before him. He had a kanji for gold on his back and a pair of goggles hung loose from his neck.
"Hey Kosuke, what's up?" Naruto greeted his summons with a smile.
"Big brother Naruto," Kosuke grinned at him.
"Listen, I need you to take this scroll to Kakashi sensei as soon as possible okay, give him this letter as well, tell him to ask Shiho if she can make sense of the symbols," Naruto handed over the scroll and the letter. Kosuke sealed them away in a storage seal on his right arm.
"I'll be there in no time boss,"
"And one more thing before you go," Naruto said before the toad could go back, "If sensei has any message for me, tell him to leave it with you, I'll summon you in a week,"
"You got it big brother," Kosuke saluted and vanished in a puff of smoke. Kosuke was one of the fastest toads of mount Myoboku and had high stamina. When he was given a job, it was as good as done. After emptying a couple more of ramen cups, he lay down for a quick nap.
Which was quicker than he would have liked, only a few minutes after closing his eyes he heard the sound of explosions and fighting. Naruto got up to his feet and ran in the direction of the noise. As he wasn't very far from the village to begin with, it didn't take him long to reach the scene where a bunch of people were fighting, and others were hurrying to get to a safe place.
The three men he met yesterday along with about twenty others were fighting a group of people who were all wearing monk's robes near the golden bell. The men in robes seemed to have the upper hand but not by much, thanks to a huge man carrying a large pillar, who was constantly grinning. Naruto assumed him to be the leader of the group, as the huge ship near the edge of village had sails with his likeness painted on it. He was almost twice as tall as Naruto, the man was wearing a necklace of red beads, he had a scruffy beard, white wings on his back and a saffron robe. There were a lot of men lying unconscious on the ground, and more were still fighting. The three men from yesterday were attacking the big guy together with little success. Nearby, an old man in a knight's armor was fighting the men in robes with a lance, he was riding a weird looking horse with wings.
From a quick glance Naruto could see that both sides were using weapons he'd never seen before- a bazooka that fired lazor like blue flames, small shells that absorbed attacks and fired them back, boots that let them glide on the surface. Naruto's attention was again drawn to the big man with the pillar, of the three that were fighting him, only the bazooka guy was left standing.
Naruto used a quick body flicker to appear a little distance away from the two, now that he was close enough, he could see that Wyper had taken a lot of damage and was barely standing, while the big guy was just grinning like a madman. It took a moment for both of them to notice him.
"You need some help?" Naruto asked.
Before Wyper could say anything, the big man spoke, "And who might you be? You don't look like a sky person," his grin seemed like it was carved on his face.
"Me? I'm just a traveler, these people were nice enough to let me stay here. Now if you don't mind, can you stop beating them, um...?" Naruto waited for the man to introduce himself. Which he did.
"I'm Urouge. I don't want to beat them, I just want that bell, if they let me have it I'll leave in peace," the man replied in even tone.
"Over...my dead body," Wyper huffed and readied his bazooka once again. Urouge lifted his pillar high up to strike the man.
"Hey!" Naruto said a little louder to get their attention, "If the bell means so much to these people, why not let them keep it? What are you going to do with it anyway?"
"I need the gold to conquer the blue sea," Urouge grinned and swung the pillar at Wyper.
Wyper jumped out of range with the help of his skates. In a burst speed that defied his bulky appearance Urouge caught up with Wyper easily. The big man swung the huge pillar as easy as one would swing a paper fan, Wyper ducked first blow, second came downward for his head but he managed to avoid it by stepping out of the way, barely. The third time however, Wyper's luck ran out, the pillar connected with his stomach and Wyper was slammed hard into the ground, with enough force to create a small crater.
Urouge lifted the pillar high in the air and brought it down on the barely conscious Wyper with full force. Naruto quickly used substitution jutsu to change places with Wyper. Naruto stood in the crater as the pillar came to meet him, he curled his bandaged palm into a fist and punched the stone pillar just as it came above his head. With a loud crack, the stone pillar shattered in a thousand small pebbles. The sound reached nearby people as they stopped their individual battles for a moment to look at what caused it.
"That's impressive strength!" Urouge's grin hadn't left his face for a single moment, "but that was my favourite." The mad monk swung his right fist at Naruto head, Naruto tilted his head a little to his right and evaded the punch by a narrow margin, not moving an inch from his place. He grabbed the extended arm, pulled Urouge over him shoulder and slammed him into the ground. The Monk didn't stay down for long though as he jumped to his feet the next moment.
Naruto lunged towards him and threw a haymaker right at his jaw. The punch connected and Urouge was sent flying. Naruto watched as the big man stood up once again.
"I thought for sure that would knock a few teeth at least," Naruto said. The Monk dusted his robes, ignoring the blood coming from his mouth like he didn't just get punched in the face. Once he rose up, Naruto noticed something about his opponent, "Is it me or did that guy got bigger after that last punch?!" he wondered out loud.
"Thank you for the boost," Urouge flexed his muscles as his whole body grew in size. He cracked his knuckles and dashed at Naruto, faster than he was a minute ago. When he got close to Naruto, Urouge jumped in the air as he brought down the now immense fist at him, "And now, Retribution!" Naruto crossed his arms in front of his face, the punch connected with far greater power than he anticipated, it was enough to push him back a couple of inches.
"So you can absorb my punches huh?" Naruto asked with a smile. Urouge just kept grinning. "Alright then, I guess simple taijutsu is useless," Naruto pushed Urouge back with a burst of speed and back flipped to put some distance between them. He took out two kunai and waited for Urouge to get close. The Monk once again charged him like a wild bull. Naruto coated both his kunai with wind chakra, when the big guy got close enough, Naruto threw both of them as fast as he could just above the armpit where shoulder met the arm. The Monk had no time to dodge and not a lot of things could block a flying swallow, the Kunai pierced the skin and muscle like it was wet paper and came out from the other side.
Pain shot through his arms as Urouge lost the power in both his limbs. The Monk stopped in his track to clutch his shoulders.
"You know I was half expecting you to absorb that damage as well," Naruto said to the Monk. Who just kept grinning, the constant smile was starting to creep him out. 'Is he crazy?!' Naruto wondered in his mind.
"Heheh one good hit doesn't mean anything, I didn't come this far to lose," Urouge took a step towards him, then another and another, "I can still kick you to death,"
Naruto took out another kunai and threw it just above Urouge's right knee, it hit it's mark and remained stuck. The big man stopped in his tracks, stumbled and fell to his knees, clutching the kunai. Naruto looked at his surroundings, the men in robes had stopped fighting, they lost their will to fight after seeing their captain like that and promptly surrendered. Fighters of Skypiea took away their weapons and began to tie them up.
Naruto took out some ninja wire as well, Urouge still tried to punch him, kick him as he was tying him but his arms weren't responding like he hoped. Naruto quickly wrapped the ninja wire around Urouge, picked him up and took him to their ship, he tied Urouge to the mast, the rest of his crew was dumped unceremoniously on the deck. When he was done, the onlookers who were so far looking at the fight from a safe distance approached him, led by an elderly man who wore a wolf's pelt on his head.
"I don't know how to thank you, I thought we wouldn't have to fight anymore again," the old man said. Some of the children ran up to him and surrounded him.
"No need to thank me grandpa, I was just repaying your hospitality." Naruto said with his usual smile.
"But we didn't even talk to you, you had no obligation to help us," the old man was saying. Naruto was about to reply when the kids started pulling on his clothes to get his attention, 'their patience must have run out,' Naruto chuckled and crouched down to their level.
"Big brother, what's your name?"
"Why is your hand wrapped in bandages?"
"How come you look like a cat?"
"Do you have any rubber bands?"
"What happened to your wings?" a bunch of them asked one after another, without giving him a chance to answer any of them. It made him laugh.
"Everybody stop!" a little girl yelled, "Don't speak all at once! It's bad manners!"
"Thank you kid!" Naruto ruffled her hair, "You can call me Naruto, and as for rubber bands...I have something better," the kids looked at him with stars in their eyes. Naruto gathered chakra in his mouth and channeled his lava release, he adjusted the ratio of earth and fire to form vulcanized rubber, he spat it out and shaped it like a ball. "Here," Naruto gave them the ball and kids ran to play.
When that was done, Naruto once again addressed the old man, "This is a fun place but now I have to get going. I'll take these guys with me," he pointed towards the pirates with his head.
The old man smiled, "You've done a lot for us, Naruto. Even when you didn't have to, let us at least thank you properly," The old man with wierd horse he saw earlier was coming towards him as well.
"You don't have to do anything, grandpa. Really, I'm just happy to help," Naruto tried to assure him but the old man didn't look like he would let it go. By now, the old man in knight's armor approached the two, as he was walking, his horse turned into a bird. For a moment, Naruto didn't believe his eyes, but he hid his surprise well.
"It will bring great shame on the people of Shandora if, as their chief, I only gave you hollow 'thank you' for your help." the old man smiled, "Come with me," he led the way through the huts and houses towards the bell. Naruto followed the old man, wondering why he was leading him towards the golden bell. One by one, many others followed him towards the bell.
"You know, when Kamakiri told me that a man from blue sea was interested in ruins of Shandora, I thought you as another adventurer who was searching for the Golden City," the old man was saying.
"Yeah, he told me this was once the legendary golden city," Naruto replied. "But no, I'm not here for the gold if that's what you're wondering."
The man chuckled, "I thought as much. Our ancestors protected city from outsiders for thousands of years. Until recently we fought and died doing our duty." By now they had reached the platform, Naruto followed the old man as he stood in front of the blue stone at the foot of the giant bell platform. "But now our duty is fulfilled, thanks to the pirate king."
"What do you mean?" Naruto was confused a little. From what he knew pirate king Gold Roger died more than two decades ago but the old man was talking like it was recent event. And how did the king of pirates fulfill their duty?
"For us sky people gold isn't worth much, but the bell is important because it's sound guides the souls of our ancestors to us." The old man said, "In the past, it's sound was a warning to all those who wished to conquer our home that we didn't fear them and to show that we are capable of protecting our treasure."
"But you said gold isn't worth much to you?" Naruto asked. 'What is the old man trying to say?' he wondered.
"That's right. It's not the gold we were protecting, it was this," the old man walked near the blue stone and traced the carved letters with his hand. "It's a message from the void century, we were tasked to protect it. From what I found out recently, Pirate king Gold Roger already read it when he came here twenty two years ago and passed it along. This poneglyph has served it's purpose so we don't have to die to protect it anymore."
Naruto sensed relief and happiness in the old man's voice, "That's awesome. But why are you telling me this?" he asked.
"You were interested in the ruins of Shandora, were you not?" the old man turned to face him.
"Yeah, I wanted to know what those writings said," Naruto gestured towards the poneglyph.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that. I can't read what it says. But what I have just told you is basically all you need to know about us,"
'I guess its a dead end then,' Naruto said to himself. "Thank you for telling me this, you have no idea how big of a help it is! That's all I came here for," he thanked the old man, "I'll take those pirates away with me if that's all the same with you, they won't trouble you again." Naruto waved his hand and began to walk away from the bell. Naruto took his leave of the sky island and boarded the ship of Urouge, seeing as he didn't have one of his own. The sky people lowered his ship to the sea below with the help of a giant octopus, he landed a few miles away from Jaya.
When he got back on the grand line after the trip to the sky, Naruto realised he'd be here for years if he kept on searching blindly. He'd have to infiltrate some place that had access to a lot of information, like the world government. From what he gathered, the navy was always looking for new recruits, so he wouldn't have to kidnap and replace anyone either. His mind set, Naruto decided to head straight for Marineford. But first he had to do something about his guests. Technically, he was the guest on their ship, but right now they were all tied up in a room.
Naruto opened the door and peaked inside the room that acted as makeshift holding cell for the pirates. The pirates were sprawled across the room, just as he left them, some were leaning their backs on the wall, their captain was sleeping on the floor, still tied up with ninja wire.
Naruto got back on the deck, he headed upstairs in the captain's cabin. Like most of the ship, this room too had a shrine like appearance, with an alter near the far end. Naruto made his way over to the table, there were a lot of religious symbols on it as well, and a transponder snail sleeping beside a framed wanted poster of 'Mad Monk' Urouge. 'Let's see what you have,' Naruto went through the drawers, there were praying beads, detailed maps of both paradise and New World, a journal, a log pose, another with three needles and an eternal log pose for Water-7 among various other small things, mostly religious.
Naruto chose a map of paradise and stretched it on the table in front of him. He was somewhere east of Jaya, that much he knew, there was an island named Navarone nearby that had a marine base, it would take him a day at most to get there. Naruto decided to hand over the pirates at that base and continue forward to Marineford. It would be a challenge even for him to sail the ship smoothly on the grand line if what he heard about the sea was true. His decision made, he got back on the deck and created two shadow clones. One clone climbed the main mast, took down the jolly roger and the other furled the sails. He didn't need those, Naruto hardly had any experience of operating a ship, unfurled sails would only complicate the matter, he decided to rely on his water release to navigate the sea.
He molded chakra with his right hand for simple water manipulation, the ship slowly started to move and turned as Naruto continued to manipulate the sea. He turned the ship and steered it towards east.
Naruto dispelled one clone, "You know what to do," he said to the remaining clone and went inside.
"Aye aye, captain!" the clone shouted and saluted him. The clone started manipulating the water and the ship started moving at fairly decent speed.
Naruto left the clone to it's job and went to explore the ship. The ship itself was fairly large with two masts, figurehead of a white demon face with yellow teeth and two crossed blades behind it. The main mast had a small shrine and crow's nest on it. It had enough rooms to house a crew of fifty comfortably, with a big, fully equipped kitchen, a spacious living room decorated with expensive looking furniture, storage room filled with barrels of booze, tools and timber for repair and plenty of cannon balls.
While the ship was going, Naruto pulled out couple of ramen cups out of a scroll. With his right hand, he channeled boil release to gather water from atmosphere and heat it at the same time, he poured the boiling water in the cup. Easy as that, dinner was ready. Naruto spent rest of his journey reading the journal and putting some useful things he found on the ship in sealing scrolls.
The sun was already up in the sky when Naruto came near Navarone. It was an island fortress surrounded by cliffs on all sides except for a small entrace which was guarded by a big iron gate. There were watch towers on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Naruto moved his ship towards the gate slowly and deliberately so they would notice him from a distance, he didn't want them to fire cannons at him in panic. The sentries spotted his ship and an alarm was sounded. They found him standing on the deck, Naruto stopped the ship and waited for them to open the gate.
Instead of simply opening the gate, two warships approached him from either side. They stopped a safe distance away from him and already had their cannons pointed at him. One of the men on the ship to his right came on the prow, he had a large snail with a speaker attached in his hands. Naruto assumed him to be captain of the ship.
"YOU'RE TRESPASSING IN WATERS OF MARINE BASE G-8, IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR WE'LL HAVE TO OPEN FIRE!" the man said in the speaker.
Naruto walked near the edge and stood on the railings, "I'm here to hand over some pirates!" he yelled at top of his lungs so the marines could hear him.
After a couple of seconds the marine spoke again, "BRING THE PIRATES ON THE DECK WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM," the man said.
Naruto thought they'd be cautious like that, "Hold on a minute," he said and went inside. He went past the captain's cabin, kitchen and a shrine and reached a room where he'd kept the pirates. Naruto opened the door, the pirates were all looking at him with absolute loathing, even Urouge had stopped smiling.
"I guess this is goodbye," Naruto said to no one in particular.
"You better watch your back, sooner or later I'll come for you," Urouge said as Naruto lifted him up to his feet.
"Yeah, yeah I'll sleep with one eye open, now move it," Naruto pulled the whole crew to their feet one by one. Naruto had to push a few of them. When they reappeared on the deck, the marines had already prepared to either board the ship or fight.
When he saw the tied up pirates, the marine spoke once again, "PREPARE TO BE BOARDED, REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE!" They put a plank between the ships and about fifty marines came aboard, including the captain. One by one, the pirates were led onto the the warship.
While the soldiers were busy, the captain approached Naruto. "That's 'Mad Monk' Urouge you captured! What's your name?" the captain asked. He was a tall and muscular man with rough features and large sideburns.
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, nice to meet you," he introduced himself and stretched him right hand.
The captain took his hand, "I'm lieutenant Drake. Uzumaki Naruto, are you a pirate hunter?"
Naruto chuckled, "Something like that."
"You must be new to this business, I never heard of you before," Drake said.
"Yeah. In fact that's the first pirate I ever captured," he said with a smile.
"First catch and that too a pirate worth over a hundred million berry! That's impressive, and you don't seem to have any partners either," the man half praised half asked.
"Yeah, I'm really new at this,"
"Well then, you can drop anchor here and come with me," when Naruto looked a little confused, he clarified, "to collect your reward, although it's fine if you dont want it," he joked.
Naruto laughed a little, "O-of course, I almost forgot!"
The captain led the way and Naruto followed. The marines hurried to take their ship inside, the huge iron gate opened slowly and ship entered the narrow entrance.
As they cleared the entrance, the main island in the centre came into view. Their ship turned and headed for a nearest dock. The lieutenant began yelling orders and the marines hurried to dock the ship. Once they were anchored, some more soldiers gathered at the dock. The pirates were led away one after another with heavy guard.
"Come with me," Drake said when they finally set foot on solid land. Naruto did as he was asked. They walked through the long maze like hallways and went deep inside the building. They stopped infront of a room and Drake opened the door, Naruto followed him inside.
"Take a seat," he said as he pointed to a seat near a table at the far end of the room and took one himself opposite to him.
"Thanks," Naruto said and waited for the man to continue. Drake picked up his transponder snail and asked the person on the other end to ready a hundred and eight million berry.
"Sorry, but you'll have to wait a bit until the whole amount is brought here. It's rare for a man worth over a hundred million berry to be captured in paradise, you see," he said with a smile.
"It's no problem. He wasn't that much trouble!" Naruto scratched the back of his neck.
"No problem, huh?" the lieutenant chuckled. "If thats the case, we could use someone like you in navy!"
"Maybe. But you don't get to keep the bounty, do you?" Naruto grinned and leaned back in his chair.
The lieutenant laughed a little as well, "No, I suppose you can't."
Just then, they heard a knock on the door. After a loud 'come in' from the lieutenant, a scrawny looking marine walked in with a large briefcase.
"Looks like your reward is here!" Drake said.
The marine put the briefcase on the table between them, Drake opened it to show him the berry inside. Naruto nodded in approval and took it in his hands.
"Pleasure doing business with you lieutenant," Naruto smiled.
"You're welcome to bring in more pirates anytime you like," Drake said.
"I'll keep that in mind," with those final words, Naruto exited the office and headed towards the dock.
"You're not seriously taking up pirate hunter business, are you?" he heard Kurama speak in his mind as he was walking through the hallways.
"Come on, you know me better than that Kurama, why would I become a pirate hunter all of a sudden? I just said that as a joke," he replied.
"In your case, one can never be too sure,"
"Hey! I'm insulted you'd think so little of me!" Naruto got a mocking chuckle in response.
"It's fine with me either way, we can explore this world as pirate hunter too,"
"Yeah, but we'll waste a lot of time that way, I want to complete this mission as soon as possible," by now he had reached the docks and a small boat was ready to take him to his ship. Naruto got in the boat and the marine with him started rowing.
"Then let's go straight to this Marineford!"
Naruto chuckled. First phase of his mission was complete, he had all the basic knowledge to blend in. He was eager to start the next phase of his mission.
Thanks for reading! Have a nice day!